Following the news earlier this week that MGM were planning reboot the Child’s Play franchise, creator Don Mancini has moved to confirm that he is indeed still moving forward with his Child’s Play TV series.
The news of a cinematic reboot for everyone’s favourite Good Guy doll came a tad out of nowhere, and the early world is that the movie will centre on a group of young children who are terrorised by a “technologically-advanced” doll.
Long before that, franchise creator Mancini had been developing a Child’s Play TV series, and he’s now reiterated that this redo is not getting in the way of that.
As Mancini told Bloody-Disgusting, “We’re still working on the series and also plan to continue the film franchise with Universal. We intend to stay true to the universe we’ve created.”
It was also confirmed to Bloody-Disgusting that Brad Dourif – the longtime voice of Chucky – will be a part of the TV effort, essentially ruling him out of working on MGM’s big-screen reboot. Additionally, the outlet reports that MGM has reached out to Mancini and franchise producer David Kirschner to offer them executive producer credits on their restart, but this offer was turned down.
To clarify things a little here for you, then, while MGM is going to be rebooting Child’s Play with their new movie, Mancini and Kirschner are not only developing a Child’s Play TV series, but the pair are also still making plans for further films that will continue the established narrative and canon of the Child’s Play pictures to date.
How is this all possible? Well, apparently there’s some loophole with the Child’s Play rights, and that’s the reason that MGM is able to develop their rebooted film despite Universal owning the home entertainment rights to the franchise.
Previously, the film franchise was already loosely rebooted with 2013’s Curse of Chucky. That film was pegged as a reboot for the series, before it was cleverly revealed to dovetail nicely with the existing franchise; Curse serving as both a reboot and a continuation. Following that, last year gave fans Cult of Chucky, which was again largely well received by audiences.
As ever, expect more on all things Child’s Play as we get it.
